'Clampdown on Khodorkovsky was absolute. There was to be no mercy'

The former ambassador to Russia learnt not to speak of the jailed Kremlin
critic, even among close friends

It was only after Putin's annual press conference was over that he casually mentioned that had decided to pardon KhodorkovskyPhoto: EPA

By Sir Anthony Brenton

7:30AM GMT 22 Dec 2013

Believe it or not, Vladimir Putin is something of a humorist. On Thursday he gave his annual televised press conference, an epic unscripted event in which, without notes, he takes questions, for four hours, from over 1,000 journalists.

One of the questions was about the future fate of jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which Putin dismissed as not being his responsibility. It was only after the conference was over, in the scrum of departure, that Putin casually mentioned what he knew was by far the biggest news of the day. He had decided to pardon Khodorkovsky - who is indeed now a free man and has joined his family in Germany.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaks during his first interview after his release (EPA)

Why was this decision so important? Khodorkovsky was the textbook oligarch. Coming from nowhere, he turned himself into Russia’s richest man and boss of its largest oil company. He then made the fatal mistake of challenging Putin’s rule. He aggressively attacked the regime on oil policy, hinted at a run for the Presidency and in effect publicly accused Putin of corruption. In late 2003, to nobody’s surprise, he was arrested, convicted (twice) on dubious charges and was incarcerated in Siberia. His companies were sold off at startlingly low prices.

In jail he has taken on the mantle of a martyr, and become an icon for the political opposition. He was due out next year – but rumours had been swirling in Moscow of a possible further extension of his sentence. Putin undoubtedly detests him. As British Ambassador in Moscow while much of this was going on, I rapidly learnt not to mention Khodorkovsky’s name, even to my closest official contacts. The clampdown on him was total and absolute. There was to be no mercy.

So Putin’s announcement was indeed startling. He claimed he was responding to an appeal by Khodorkovsky to see his sick mother. Maybe so (even Russian Presidents have feelings). There may also have been a deal which will keep Khodorkovsky out of Russian politics, and even out of Russia, for the foreseeable future. But, beyond that, there are two compelling reasons why Putin might prefer Khodorkovsky out of jail to Khodorkovsky in.

Firstly, at a time when Russian economic growth has slowed dramatically, Khodorkovsky in Siberia had become the single most potent symbol of all that is wrong with the Russian business environment: the predatory state, the pliable legal system, the ubiquitous corruption.

The day of his arrest was widely seen as the moment when Russia decisively turned away from its faltering progress towards democracy and market economics towards the authoritarian quasi-kleptocracy it has since become. There will be real hopes, at least in the more liberal corners of the regime, that his release will mark the beginning of a shift back.

And secondly there is Sochi – the site of next year’s Winter Olympics. The Russians are spending about $50 billion here to showcase themselves to the world. But all is not going well. A stream of Western leaders, most notably President Barack Obama, have already announced they will not be attending the opening ceremony. The Russians are determined to do what they can to retrieve the situation by improving their international image – whence the release of their best known political prisoner, Khodorkovsky (as well as members of the punk band Pussy Riot and the Greenpeace protesters arrested in the Arctic).

But I suspect the real change which lies behind the release of Khodorkovsky is in Russia itself. Putin is on a roll. Certainly there are economic pressures, but so there are in most major emerging economies, and growth remains significantly higher than, for example, in Western Europe.

The past few months have seen a string of Russian foreign policy successes. In particular, they have pulled the West’s chestnuts out of the fire on Syria. And they have seen the EU off in the competition for closer links with Ukraine.

Meanwhile Putin has faced down last year’s mass demonstrations against his rule, been re-elected President, spent his birthday with the leader of the world’s fastest rising non-Western power, China, and consistently enjoys the support of about 65 per cent of the Russian people. Little wonder that he finally feels confident enough to alow the man who was yesterday’s threat – Mikhail Khodorkovsky – to go.

All of which raises the question of whether the West is handling this newly self-confident Russia right. I wonder. I am particularly struck by the contrast between the subservience with which all the Western leaders turned up at the opening of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and their current hesitations about Sochi.

China is by almost every measure a more authoritarian place than Russia – so there is no argument of principle for this. And it will simply confirm Russia’s feeling that the West is both enfeebled in its foreign policy grip and hypocritical in its values; and thus to be challenged, rather than embraced.

* Sir Anthony Brenton was British ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008